Every day on my ride to work, I witness people on paid 'street art' tours around Shoreditch. The tour guides are inevitably highlighting the work of famous (white male) street artists. As a result, I've increasingly turned toward making more art directly for the people I know and love rather than sticking it up on random walls. This 40th birthday book for my partner is an example of what I mean.
Caged bird Matthew Cunningham is used to defending the ethics of street photography, so it was nice not to have to worry about such matters with the shots of City workers he stuck up at Ante Art 2013.
None of us expected any different. The bankers got let off, then they got bailed out, then they got richer than ever.
It would be understandable if you assumed I had given up putting my work on the streets in exchange for a cushty life of legitimate indoor exhibitions and poster making. But that doesn't mean that assumption is right. All this time, I've been cooking up something new and this is what it looks like.
We had our first indoor, non-clandestine exhibition in the beautiful Kirkgate Centre in Shipley this weekend as part of the Ante-art festival. It was such an uplifting event with so many amazing people taking part that we are going to publish a separate post about that. Our contribution was a collaborative attempt to redefine what it really means to be one of history's losers.
We've been pretty busy
preparing for the Ante-exhibition this weekend but we thought we'd share some photos of our process. If you were hoping for a surprise, look away now.
This is Pivo preparing to print one of 5 (five!) brand new stencils.
